There are certain combinations that can make good words great, like “ice cream corgi” or, to quote Andy Dwyer, “Xbox pancake.” But my favorite pairing of two seemingly dissimilar words would have to be: taco cannon. Repeat after me: “taco cannon,” as in a cannon that shoots tacos. Robopanda wrote about it last year, but I LIVED (and was almost killed by) it over the weekend, at one of the best music festivals in the country, Austin’s Fun Fun Fun Fest. Sure, there was some great music and comedy, too, courtesy of Snoop Dogg/Lion, M.I.A., Slayer, Tenacious D, Doug Benson, Cro-Mags, and the Dismemberment Plan, but we’ll get to that. After we talk about taco cannons.
The set-up was this: at 2 p.m. on Sunday, a bunch of tacos were going to be shot out of a cannon at the Yellow Stage, also known as the Main Stage. The cannon was placed inauspiciously to the side, posing as an amp but no one was filmed; we can spot a sheep in wolf’s clothing, especially if that sheep is chicken and the wolf’s clothing is a soft-shell, from a mile away. After Indie Rock Band #58 finished their set at exactly 2 p.m., the audience began to stir, myself included. The physically and mentally imposing 12-chamber cannon was in place; the only question was where to stand, some 200-300 feet away from the stage. I haven’t taken math since high school, but I know a little something about tacos, so I put myself where I thought I had the best chance at snagging one, based on, like, numbers and sh*t. Someone behind me actually said the word “angles,” and there were a lot of someones: at least 200 people gathered in a cluster, and we all wore excited and guilty smiles. We were not above this.
Shame on them, though, because I knew they were wrong and soon I’d be eating a delicious…OH SH*T. THE TACOS. BOOM BOOM BOOM. I ALMOST GOT ONE. MY HAND GRAZED A TACO. GODDAMMIT I MISSED THE TACOS. It happened just like that: without warning, meat was being launched into the air, right at…people who weren’t me. I touched one, I swear to Chorizo God, I did, but my tragically non-greasy fingers deceived me and I couldn’t quite grasp the gift from above. It went to some jag-off behind me, who unfolded the shirt the taco was wrapped in and…WHAT. It was a lie. It was all a goddamn lie. For there was no taco in that shirt: there was a Twinkie. And not even two Twinkies, like you usually get, but a single Twinkie, and a Twinkie does not a taco make.
APPARENTLY only some of the missiles contained tacos, which is the single saddest sentence in the English language, unlike “There are tacos in the air,” which is the single funniest sentence in the English language. I walked away from the taco cannon a lesser man, knowing that it had beat me. Sigh. Anyway, if that most tragic of tales depressed you as much as it did me, here are some cheerier FFFFest photos taken by Nadia Chaudhury.
The Walkmen
Cut Copy
Snoop Dogg/Lion
Bleached
White Lung
Jenny Slate
Doug Benson
Craig Robinson
Television
Deerhunter
M.I.A.
Tenacious D
Taco Cannon
The Men
Cloud Nothings
Cro-Mags
The Dismemberment Plan
Slayer
